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Head of Rosprirodnadzor Svetlana Radionova: Mr President,

Five years ago you set out the main guidelines that have changed our environmental views. You defined three key points in accordance with which we are working. In your 2021 Address [to the Federal Assembly], you said that if you have benefited from polluting the environment, clean up after yourself, and Rosprirodnadzor must monitor compliance with this. You emphasised that the “polluter pays” principle must apply to everyone, and that we must hold violators accountable. You also proposed marking environmental payments to the federal budget.

As a follow-up to these instructions, the Government has adopted a large number of by-laws and key federal laws stipulating responsibility for failure to clear up accumulated pollution, so that there will be no more tragedies like those in Usolye-Sibirskoye or Krasny Bor, the consequences of which we are eliminating with federal funds. We are working with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) to create a technology for discontinuing the operation of such facilities.

We have completed a complex reform of the extended producer responsibility system, setting clear requirements for the disposal of packaging waste. Manufacturers must either pay for the recycling of their packaging or ensure that these payments are directed towards improving waste management and solid waste reform. This work is also well underway.

To further this idea, we are implementing the principle that every ruble we receive from polluting the environment must be invested in environmental development. We are collecting two types of payments: the mandatory payment by every enterprise for pollution, discharges and emissions. We also gradually increase such payments every year by one billion rubles. We are effectively bringing those who “forget” to pay out of the shadows. We send warnings and use preventive measures. As of today, we have transferred 21 billion rubles to the budgets of the constituent entities of Russia, and each of them can and does invest these funds in environmental protection.

We take pride in the success of the reform on extended producer responsibility. We have collected 20 billion rubles, a record amount. The target figure was seven billion rubles. We have collected these funds in accordance with relevant laws.

We believe it would be useful to codify the entire body of environmental legislation adopted over the past five years – more than 300 regulatory acts in total. Our colleagues in Belarus are already working on this, and China is drafting a strong environmental code. We also believe it is time to return to Valentina Matviyenko’s proposal, voiced at the Nevsky Environmental Congress, to create or discuss an environmental code. Such a step would help streamline legislation, give businesses a clear understanding of what is expected of them, and enable the public to contribute to this important process. It will likely take more than a year to complete, but it is time to do that.

As a supervisory agency, we closely monitor the “polluter pays” principle, and each year collection of related payments improves as our oversight becomes more rigorous. We now win in nearly 87 percent of court cases, which shows that our inspections are well-grounded. In practice, everyone knows that if Rosprirodnadzor arrives, the penalties will be collected and the funds will go toward environmental protection, because all these mechanisms are interconnected.

Today, one of the largest categories of natural resource users is the extractive industry. Rosprirodnadzor monitors around 25,000 mining sites, though only seven percent are subject to scheduled inspections due to their high risk level; the rest are covered through preventive measures. Working together with Roscosmos and using satellite imagery and remote sensing, we now identify 85 percent of environmental violations from space. Even in areas where inspectors have never set foot, we can monitor what is happening thanks to this “space eye.”

All businesses understand that they are never left without oversight. We are now proposing to grant legal status to satellite-based monitoring data so that physical site inspections are no longer required to confirm violations. Whenever we have checked satellite data on the ground, it has been verified in 100 percent of cases. This proves the high accuracy and reliability of our space-based monitoring.

Introducing the legal validity of this tool is essential. Once implemented, it will ease the burden of workload on inspectors and allow us to monitor conditions in remote areas, from the Amur Region to Magadan and Chita, where access is limited by weather and geography, sometimes possible only seasonally or by helicopter. This initiative, we believe, is both timely and necessary.

As a regulator of natural resources, we must recognise that our work takes us into the home of wild creatures. The Federal Service for Natural Resources is responsible for the conservation of endangered species. You have launched the Bear Patrol, and now everybody in the Arctic calls it the President’s Bear Patrol. Over the past five years, we have monitored over 25 animals. We have published a manual for those working and living in the Arctic. There have been conflicts. On some occasions, we had to deliver animals by air to Moscow (a bear cub, for example). The Moscow Zoo and its specialists help us. This manual is focused on preventing conflicts and following the correct protocols when in the habitat of a major predator. We are proud of the results. There have been no conflicts this year.

There will be a big conference this year for the five countries serving as the habitat for polar bears, in Greenland (Denmark). Canada, the United States, Norway, Russia and Denmark will be discussing the 1973 treaty. We will also talk about best practices because Russia has shown the most humane treatment of this predator. Bear hunting is prohibited in our country, unlike in Canada or the United States. We do not hunt bears; we protect them. We intend to advocate for the best practices that we implement ourselves.

Speaking of international cooperation, I would like to mention that we represent Russia at international platforms. These include all the UN platforms. Our work covers extensive international cooperation efforts, such as the Basel Convention, the Stockholm Convention concerning persistent pollutants and, of course, all biodiversity conventions, including many Russian initiatives. We must be heard and we speak out.

A CITES convention will be held in Uzbekistan this year. We are promoting the Russian language as one of the working languages since most conventions support all the UN languages. This year, Russia will cover the costs of Russian-language resources for more than ten countries using it. In collaboration with the Foreign Ministry, we are working to make Russian an official working language there.

As for the Basel Convention, we insist on incorporating an amendment proposed by Russia on waste elimination and safe disposal. Launched three years ago, a major agreement on microplastics is in development, with extensive publicity. We insist that environmental platforms must not be used for trade since they are platforms for protection and care. We promote the idea that, instead of trading quotas, all these environmental conventions that we adopt must focus on the preservation of businesses, protection of manufacturers and safer operation of our industrial facilities through technology sharing. Essentially, this is what we declare at these platforms. We have been heard, and we currently defend Russia’s approaches along with other countries.

I would like to conclude by saying that we know that we cannot deal with many issues unassisted, and so we are implementing many environmental awareness projects. We have been working on this for the past five years. We are grateful for your greetings, which we read out to the children – over the course of five years, 310,000 children from 95 countries and five continents have taken part in the contest for the Ecology is Everyone prize, which we are proud of. This year, universities have assigned additional points to our participants and several universities have provided additional state-funded places. We would like to ask you to make this an obligatory practice.

The young people who take part in volunteer movements and environmental awareness campaigns, protecting the environment of their regions, must have an advantage. We believe that it would be appropriate for all universities to support such winners or environmental activists by giving them an additional point or two. It would be a great honour and very important for young people.

Vladimir Putin: Ms Radionova, we have a relevant air pollution programme for 12 cities, and so on. What are your reports based on, the amount of investment in equipment, or concrete air pollution reduction figures?

Svetlana Radionova: You see, the Government insists – Dmitry Patrushev as our curator, as well as our Minister, regards Rosprirodnadzor as the verifier and insists that we not merely prepare paper reports but also provide the results of instrumental surveys.

The Clean Air programme is very complicated, involving 12 cities – the number has increased to 29 – and a large number of facilities that fall under a cap-and-trade system. They report on the measures they have taken. We check the implementation of their plans and analyse the work of their equipment in the past year to see if they comply with their quotas or not.

At the moment it works as follows: an enterprise tells us that they have installed the necessary equipment, but the air cannot become cleaner overnight. This equipment must work for a year without breaking down or being turned off. If something breaks down, which can happen with any equipment, the broken part must be replaced so that this equipment works properly and we can gauge its effectiveness. That is how we are working. We have started receiving the first reports, and next year we will analyse the first annual results of instrumental surveys.

Of course, we are also waiting for enterprises to install the necessary sensors so that we can take measurements online, because we are not fully satisfied with paper reports.

Vladimir Putin: Good, thank you.